Security & Strategic Review - March 2024

The deputy director of Brazil’s national intelligence agency (Abin), Alessandro Moretti, was dismissed on 30 January for allegedly having maintained contact with the agency’s former director Alexandre Ramagem (2019-2022), whose properties were raided five days earlier.... Read More

El Salvador’s Nayib Bukele, already enjoying sky-high popularity at home due to his controversial but highly successful crackdown on criminal gangs, is acquiring a growing list of disciples abroad.... Read More

The Ecuadorean authorities have for the last two years largely sought to limit their criticism of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, wary of damaging trade relations with Moscow.... Read More

Tensions between Venezuela and Guyana over the disputed Essequibo region had appeared to be cooling two months after Venezuela’s provocative 3 December referendum, in which voters supported annexing the territory.... Read More

Argentina’s President Javier Milei, who had pledged during the election campaign to boost ties with Israel, travelled to Tel Aviv and Jerusalem from 6-8 February and met Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.... Read More

The United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) released a statement on 5 February describing the 2024 wildfire season in Chile as the deadliest on record.... Read More

Kattya González, a senator for Paraguay’s opposition centre-left Partido Encuentro Nacional (PEN), went on a hunger strike on 10 February.... Read More

On 22 February the New York Times (NYT) published a story about a shelved US investigation into potential links between the administration of Mexico’s President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and drug trafficking organisations (DTOs).... Read More

The inability of state or federal forces to tackle increasing violent crime in Mexico’s southwestern state of Guerrero has prompted some sectors of society to take matters into their own hands.... Read More

Mexico’s government is making headway in its mission to hold the US arms industry legally responsible for gun violence over the border.... Read More

Since taking office mid-January, Guatemala’s new President Bernardo Arévalo has declared the fight against extortion a key security priority.... Read More

Ahead of El Salvador’s 4 February presidential and legislative elections, civil society groups raised multiple democracy concerns.... Read More

Nicaragua’s recent decision to grant asylum to Panama’s former president Ricardo Martinelli (2009-2014), days after Panama’s top court (CSJ) upheld a conviction against him, has raised eyebrows.... Read More

The latest Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) released by Berlin-based anti-corruption NGO Transparency International (TI) at the end of January highlighted the Dominican Republic as “the only country in the region to have made significant progress in the fight against corruption since 2021”.... Read More

On the morning of 7 February, a mysterious oil-carrying vessel ran aground on a reef off the coast of Tobago, spilling its cargo into a long slick which is polluting the marine habitat and threatening tourism.... Read More

On 20 February the Council of the European Union (EU) removed The Bahamas, Belize, and the Turks & Caicos Islands (TCI) from its list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes.... Read More

As we went to press Haiti’s security situation had reached a new low amid a series of attacks coordinated by the country’s top gang leader Jimmy ‘Barbecue’ Chérizier, with the stated aim of bringing down the government.... Read More